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Windows doesn't "just work" (lemm.ee)

submitted 2 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

250 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I've been using Linux exclusively for about 8 years. Recently I got frustrated with a bunch of issues that popped one after another. I had a spare SSD so I decided to check out Windows again. I've installed Windows 11 LTSC. It was a nightmare. After all the years on Linux, I forgot how terrible Windows actually is.

On the day I installed the system and a bunch of basic software, I had two bluescreens. I wasn't even doing anything at that time, just going through basic settings and software installation. Okay, it happens. So I installed Steam and tried to play a game I've been currently playing on Linux just to see the performance difference. And it was... worse, for some reason. The "autodetect" in game changed my settings from Ultra to High. On Linux, the game was running at the 75 fps cap all the time. Windows kept dropping them to around 67-ish a lot of times. But the weirdest part was actual power consumption and the way GPU worked. Both systems kept the GPU temperature at around 50C. But the fans were running at 100% speed at that temperature on Windows, while Linux kept them pretty quiet. I had to change the fan controls by myself on Windows just because it was so annoying. The power consumption difference was even harder to explain, as I was getting 190-210W under Linux and under Windows I got 220-250W. And mind you, under Linux I had not only higher graphical settings set up, but was also getting better performance.

I tried connecting my bluetooth earbuds to my PC. Alright, the setup itself was fine. But then the problems started. My earbuds support opus codec for audio. Do you think I can change the bluetooth codec easily, just like on Linux? Nope. There is no way to do it without some third party programs. And don't even get me started on Windows randomly changing my default audio output and trying to play sound through my controller.

Today I decided to make this rant-post after yet another game crashed on me twice under Windows. I bought Watch Dogs since it's currently really cheap on Steam. I click play. I get the loading screen. The game crashed. I try again. I play through the basic "tutorial". After going out of the building, game crashed again. I'm going to play again, this time under Linux.

I've had my share of frustrations under Linux, but that experience made me realise that Windows is not a perfect solution either. Spending a lot of time with Linux and it's bugs made me forget all the bad experience in the past with Windows, and I was craving to go back to the "just works" solution. But it's not "just works". Two days was all it took for me to realize that I'll actually stick with Linux, probably forever. The spare SSD went back to my drawer, maybe so I can try something new in the future. It's so good to be back after a short trip to the other side!

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 weeks ago

Windows 11 LTSC

I'm using Window 11 IoT Enterprise LTSC; the biggest issue I've had was that I couldn't get my video card installed. I had to wait until there was an updated driver, a few weeks after I assembled my computer. Every time I tried to install the driver that was supposed to be the correct one, I got a BSOD.

Honestly, I like 11 IoT Enterprise LTSC better than I liked the 10 Pro version that I had. And--compared to the only Linux distro I've used, Tails--it's fairly straightforward. And yes, I know the Tails is kind of a pain in the ass, and it's not fair to judge all of Linux against that. But i'm old, and cranky, and just want Win 3.11 back.

[–] [email protected] 79 points 2 weeks ago (8 children)

My main issue with Windows isn’t its technology, but its attitude. The user is no longer the most important consideration. In that way it’s become adversarial.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 2 weeks ago (5 children)

Yes. I prefer my os to be more passively adversarial. Like Gentoo. It hates everything equally.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 weeks ago

My work just changed from gsuite to m365 and it is atrocious. Obviously fuck google but god damn if microsoft arent just the worst at designing UI and considering actual consumer concerns when dsigning programs. Quit your job if they change to office.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago

Amen. This is similar to the experience I have too. When I use Windows I have as many if not more problems. If I was only using a web browser, like most non-power users, I would have across the board worse issues on windows.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Fedora Linux has been the most stable OS in my experience, having used Windows XP to 10 and switching to Linux before 11 came out. I can leave it on for literally weeks on end and the memory never randomly fills up, nor does it get more and more glitchy/crash prone as you leave it on, both of which I have experienced on Windows.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago

In my experience, Fedora tends to be what a lot of developers settle on after distro hopping. This is by no way universal and RedHat has issues. But at some point, the OS and desktop environment become background noise compared to your own code and IDE. Younger people probably have different preferences — and they should — but you get more experienced and you have your setup. If my laptop dies, I can get back to coding quicker with Fedora than any other distro and it’s almost always stable.

In the end, a computer is a tool and being skilled with an old tool can be better than being new to a more modern tool. I still use the same brand/type power drill that I used in high school/college when I worked construction in the summers. (Dewalt and I’d rather the old 18v but they switched to 20v. I have an adapter to charge either battery, though, so it’s fine.)

[–] [email protected] 66 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (7 children)

I just reinstalled and configured Windows for a friend who's machine was hacked, so my frustration with Microsoft is very fresh. (She lost 8 thousand dollars of her savings she's still trying to get back.) After years of using Linux I feel like I'm being punished every time I help someone with their Windows machine.

/Rant

These things in particular drive me nuts:

Sending everything users do and type (including passwords) back to Microsoft. It's called spyware when other companies do it. It should be called spyware when it's an OS called Microsoft Windows.
Flooding 1/2 the screen with web search results when a search is done from the start menu. I'm looking for an installed program, not a potato recipe.
Requiring a registry edit to turn that web search off and lots of other simple things that use to be configurable in settings.
Placing ads throughout the operating system and making it difficult to turn those ads off.
Forcing the use of the Edge browser no matter what users choose.
Preventing the removal of unwanted programs without editing the registry.
Forced updates at Microsoft's convenience.
Absurdly long restart times after updating.
Forced OS version upgrades.
Reverting settings that have been changed by the user to settings that directly benefit Microsoft's sales and marketing goals.
Forced restarts of the operating system causing data loss and the loss of millions of hours of work for millions of users.
Removing more and more user settings with each new OS release.
Burying commonly used menu items multiple menus deep.
Preventing the removal of Start menu items. I will never use the Xbox Game Bar no matter how many time I'm forced to see it.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Sending everything users do and type (including passwords) back to Microsoft. It's called spyware when other companies do it.

Do you have any proof that Microsoft keylogs you? That's quite a serious claim.

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[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Forcing upgrades at Microsoft's convenience.

This is the only one I agree with. Upgrades are necessary for security, it’s just a fact of life.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 weeks ago (12 children)

The problem isn't the updates. The problem is microsoft downloading things and restarting my pc without my consent (annoying me until I say "fine, do it" is not consent). No one but me decides when my machine installs updates and reboots. I know I'm putting myself at risk if I let my system fall behind on updates. That's on me, it's my computer, it is my right to make that decision.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago

absofuckinglutely.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

On my kid’s laptop I was holding Windows 11 24H2 back because of Recall, but this week it just decided to install itself. Now it’s a Linux laptop.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

FYI: Recall is delayed and will only work on specific arm computers anyway. So you weren't in at any immediate risk. Not arguing against installing Linux though. That's great!

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 weeks ago

See? They forced you to upgrade to Linux, now you’re more secure!

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[–] [email protected] 35 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

I dunno, I dont think it's normal to get two blue screens on a fresh windows install.

Windows audio really is trash though, I'm totally with you there.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Windows will never have the flexibility of JACK

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

what is jack?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago

the alternative to gstreamer. both were precursors to pipewire, which aims to meet both use cases.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 weeks ago

i setup my old job with linux internally. never had issues. day i quit boss told me to install windows so he can find a replacement employee. sure.

3 years later. boss wants me back. they've had nothing but problems. but i'm not allowed to install linux again.

he says, "if windows didn't have so many problems you would be out of a job."

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

It's interesting seeing the variety of experiences in this thread. I definitely had to fight Linux to get it setup and stable on my machine, but ever since then it's been rock solid in a way I've never experienced with a Windows install.

Windows has a mind of its own...and being at the mercy of their update cadence or w/e other nonsense Microsoft is pushing sucks.

Meanwhile on Linux, I've had two CPUs that have C-State/P-State issues (5900x, 1700x), some weirdness with my audio interface, and a GPP0 bug that interferes with sleep. All of them are fixed or managed on Bazzite now, and it took plenty of digging for docs/reddit threads but now it's rock solid.

On Windows, any time I've needed to deal with the Microsoft Store I run into issues that require registry fixes, uninstall/reinstalling various things, etc. Sea of Thieves and Forza Horizon 5 had issues launching as a result on Windows but not on Linux.

Ultimately, not being under the Microsoft gun is such a relief that the initial battle is completely put out of my mind. I've had some instances where I'll boot into Windows for games, or HDR/Atmos support more reliably for my living room setup, but they have gotten rarer and rarer over the past couple of months.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

For the record, Sea Of Thieves is also available as a standalone purchase through Steam, bypassing the Microsoft Store and their half abandoned UWP format entirely. Never had any issues with the Steam version on Windows.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago

Honestly I think this may have happened on the Steam version for me, I ended up reinstalling on Linux same-day and didnt have the same issue.

IIRC it had something to do with the Xbox Game Bar/App registry entries that still applied to the Steam version. I had definitely used the UWP version before though, so it's possible it was that or that had contributed.

But downloading it on Bazzite and just having it work was...a little bizarre to experience.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

The microsoft store sells games? I thought that was only used to occasionally update your xbox for pc controllers by grabbing the xbox accessories app. Never seen the microsoft store otherwise.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I think the Xbox App somewhat serves content through the Microsoft Store, I definitely had to troubleshoot between the two for a couple things.

They do sell games as well. I think I got an episode of the Batman Telltale series through it for free, though much like Epic managing an additional library with less features/support is usually not worth it for me.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago

Ah sorry, guess I should have tagged it as sarcastic.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

There is no perfect OS that just works for everyone. They are all software so they all have bugs. People how say an OS just works have never hit those bugs or have gotten used to fixing/working around or flat out ignoring them.

This is true of all OSs, including Windows, Linux and MacOS. They are all differently buggy messes.

Linux is the buggy mess that works best for me though.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Nothing is bug free, but that doesn't mean everything is sort of the same just different flavor.

The last couple days I dealt with Windows, which is out of the ordinary for me. I had to build a little thing and chose PowerShell and that is quirky but ok at a glance. Now we are in 2025 and PowerShell is a modern thing, and kid you not you install a thing using Module-Install and then you uninstall it using Module-Uninstall and what happens? The thing is only gone partially and some broken remains stay. And then another curiosity comes up where after long rummaging it turns out that one user (Admin) simply cannot see another user's mounted share - has microsoft ever heard of the concept of "permission denied"?

That's not a differently flavored bag of bugs, that is like decades of computing and software engineering hadn't taken place

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I use Powershell a lot at work, and I really like it. Especially compared to bash which gives me headaches when reading.

But yeah install-module and uninstall-module can sometimes be quirky. The easiest solution is to remove the files for the directory.

it turns out that one user (Admin) simply cannot see another user's mounted share - has microsoft ever heard of the concept of "permission denied"?

I'm pretty sure the reason is that because the share is mounted using the users account and doesn't affect anything else. It kinda makes sense for me because that is just the way Windows works ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

Two users can have different mapping so giving a permission denied doesn't make a lot of sense since it simply doesn't exist for the user.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

While that's true, there are objectively different levels of 'just working' though.

I've never spent so little time googling how to fix things as I do with Ubuntu or Mint. It's much more frequently needed and time consuming on other Linux OSs, iOS, Windows, Android. Haven't personally used Mac.

Also, I've always found a fix on Ubuntu. The same can't be said for other OSs.

That's just personal examples, but the general idea still stands: different systems have a different amount of bugs, (or worse, 'features') and the difficulty of fixing them isn't the same for everything either.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Man I'd kill to be able to use all of the APT commands I see online. DNF forces me to know what I'm doing lol.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago

After switching to Silverblue a couple years ago I’ve used dnf, like, three times maybe. I find rpm-ostree even simpler than apt since it’s easy to tell what additional packages I’ve installed, it’s trivial to remove them, and I’ve never had a dependency issue.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

I was in a somewhat similar place when I first got a laptop with Windows 11 preinstalled. Decided to dual boot, set Windows up with strictly local accounts, and actually poke around in there out of curiosity.

Tbf, the last time I was regularly doing anything in Windows was during the Vista --> Win 7 era. This did not make 11 any more approachable or easier to get even very basic things accomplished. I didn't like the UI (still don't), and kept getting frustrated at those "little" things like the Bluetooth codec issue you mention. Haven't even tried to do much gaming on that side, to compare, other than a couple I couldn't get working properly through WINE/Proton. (A couple of other software packages too.) So I ended up rarely playing those, and only booting into there at all once in a blue moon.

I did recognize that a lot of that frustration was on me and my expectations, though. Doesn't mean that I still don't want to have more control over basically everything about my system. I probably could make even modern Windows work better for me, but why bother when I'm already happy enough elsewhere. ¯\(ツ)/¯

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago

Windows is a just the comfort zone for normies...

Linux once set up has less issues but it can be hard to set if you your hardware doesn't work out of the box. Which is a real risk

[–] [email protected] 72 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (3 children)

I have an ongoing irritation with windows (use it for work, Linux at home): It steals focus from the window you're using if another window opens.

Drives me nuts. I'll be typing my password and pop! Oh look I just typed my password into something else that popped up because IT requires this program to run on login today.

KDE is much better about not stealing window focus like that.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Mac os is pretty bad with that bullshit too

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[–] [email protected] -4 points 2 weeks ago (7 children)

What windows are you having randomly pop up? That might be width investigating because that shouldn't be happening.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

They're things like drive mapping scripts, stuff like that. They're definitely normal for our setup. Just not sure why they have to interrupt me!

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

The fact that Windows devs seem to not know how to run tasks hidden and in the background always bothers me. I’m sure it’s the fault of Windows itself, but Linux doesn’t open jack until I tell it to. With all the extra helper programs needs in the tray to run all the proprietary hardware, I about lose it with all the shit popping up to yell at me.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago

It's very easy to run things like scripts in the background. Showing a command/powershell windows because of a drive mapping script is amateurish (and very annoying). Usually scripts like those are run on logon.

We have an automation server at work that runs a bunch of scripts for all kinds of stuff. It just uses task scheduler. Hiding the script output is as simple as telling it too. We have a lot of servers at work that run important production shit interactively. So someone has to logon the server and start the problem.

It's utterly disgusting. I recently introduced them to NSSM which can run simple programs as a service, which entirely solves the problem. But it's bizarre that no one else has suggested that before, or found some other solution.

Fortunately, I'm not responsible for prod applications running on those servers, it just really fucks with our patching procedures.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 weeks ago

I came to the same conclusion recently. Had a bunch of issues after i decided to try running windows 11 instead of 10 in a vm. One of them being that my usb dac refused to work, turns out after googling and finding a weird random chatgpt article that it was caused by a specific update. Had to roll the update back to solve it. Now i have to hope that they solve it before they decide to force the update on me anyways.

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